My Next Tattoo
I know what my next tattoo is going to be.
Before you judge me, I only have two and I got my last one over a year ago. My first post on this blog was about that tattoo, so go read about it if you’re interested. Today, we’re talking about my next tattoo.
As has been the case of late, Eugene Peterson has been inspiring me with his book Run with the Horses about the prophet Jeremiah in the Old Testament of the Bible. I’ve written before about why I love Jeremiah, but the short of it is that I feel a kinship with anyone who does the right thing, is obedient to God, and gets treated like garbage for it. That’s been most of my experience over the past ten years and it’s encouraging to know that there’s nothing wrong with me, nor is it my fault. Religious elites have been treating those who are actually faithful to God like crap for a very long time.
Anyway, today I learned a new Hebrew word: hashkem. (The next step in the development of this tattoo is figuring out what this word looks like written in actual Hebrew, rather than this transliteration into the English alphabet.) Surprising no one, I like this word not just for what it means, but the history behind it. Allow me, with the help of Eugene, to tell it to you.
In the nation of Palestine today, there are two mountains: Ebal and Gerazim. Being mountains, they’ve been there for literal ages. When the ancient Israelites finally came out of the desert into this new land that God had promised them, Joshua, their leader, divided them in half. Half of the people stood on the slopes of Mount Ebal and the other half on the slopes of Mount Gerazim. In the middle of these two slopes is a village that is now a proper city, Shechem. For reference, Shechem is located, today, in the West Bank of Palestine. “Shechem”, in ancient Hebrew, means “shoulder”. The town was named as such because it stood between the shoulders of these two mountains.
And it was here, in between the shoulders of the two mountains, that Joshua reminded the ancient Israelites who they were and whose they were (God’s people). He reminded them of the law and then half the people proclaimed the blessings that would be theirs as a nation if they chose to live according to God’s law and keep all of his commands. The other half of the people, from the opposing mountain slope, proclaimed the curses that would fall upon them as a nation if they chose not to live according to God’s law or keep his commands.
As time went on, “shechem” started to take on a new meaning. Have you ever heard someone talk about shouldering a burden? This idea developed in ancient Hebrew around “shechem”. The word started to be used to refer to loading up things on your shoulders or the shoulders of your animals so that you could take a day’s journey. Instead of just the noun, “shoulder”, “shechem” also became a verb, as it is in contemporary English as well.
Somewhere along the line, the word started to change form to hashkem as it took on another layer of meaning. In ancient Israel, as well as in most of the Middle East, it gets very hot. If you were going to go on a long journey, you were either going to be on foot or riding an animal in the hot sun. So, people who were going to travel generally left before the sun rose. They got up before the sun, shouldered their burdens, and went on their trips. Eugene puts it this way, “Eventually the word came to describe the activity of people who got up early before the sun and set out with heavy burdens on long journeys”.
If you’re reading a contemporary translation of the Bible, hashkem is translated as “persistently” with the nuance of urgency and steadfastness. With great labor, personal sacrifice, and discipline, the prophet Jeremiah proclaimed the words of God to the people of God who didn’t want to listen to God. He was shouldering a burden and was often up early to do it.
The reason that I want this to be my next tattoo is related all the way back to the root word, “shechem”. The Israelites were given the opportunity to shoulder the burden of the word of God from the very beginning of their history. As they enter the land that God promised to give them, they stand on the shoulders of the mountains and hear his words to them and also the consequences, both good and bad, for what they do with those words. They were invited to join God in his work to restore humanity and draw people back to himself. And we know from the later teachings of Jesus that this burden he offered to Israel is toilsome or heavy, it is meant to give them rest (Matthew 11:28-30).
It’s no secret that the ancient Israelites failed to shoulder the burden. But what you might not know is that God didn’t give up on them. Jeremiah was not the first or the last prophet that God sent to speak to his people. Jeremiah was not the first or the last prophet to re extend the invitation to the people of God to shoulder the burden of his words to humanity. And Jeremiah was not the first or the last prophet to be completely disregarded by the people of God. They didn’t want to listen to him. In fact, another prophet, Isaiah, was told by God himself that the people that he was going to talk to would not listen to him (Isaiah 6:9-13).
I want to get hashkem tattooed on my body because I want to remember what is often required to live in obedience to God. We must remember that we are invited to shoulder the burden of the blessings and the curses of living according to God’s word and telling as many people as we can about them. We must remember that Christ tells us that his yoke is easy, but that doesn’t mean that there’s no work involved. In fact, we must remember that we’re going to need to get up early and organize our lives around shouldering the burden of the life he’s called us to live. And we must do that work, whatever it looks like specifically in our own lives, persistently, faithfully, day in and day out with a sense of urgency that this is the most important work that we could ever be doing.
If you’ve known me for longer than a day or so, you probably know that I’m a morning person. Always have been. I don’t know if it’s the experience of being late for school at 7:15 AM with really harsh consequences for being tardy that did it to me or that I started drinking coffee on the way to school at the age of fifteen. Either way, I’ve always loved a morning, but specifically, a sunrise. I wrote about this on my first ever post on this blog as well because the tattoo I was writing about then was also kind of about sunrises.
The concept of hashkem in the life of Jeremiah makes me think about the time that I choose to spend with God each day. It’s early in the morning, first thing. During the dark months of the year, the sun is not up, even by the time that I’m finished reading and praying. During the months of longer days, the sun sometimes beats my alarm clock. It’s those dark months that I love because they remind me that the burden I’ve been given - the very words of GOD!!- is worth shouldering well, even when no one can see it. You could almost think of it as a question of stewardship and then my love for this concept becomes even deeper and clearer.
I’ve taught my friends for years that stewardship is central to our life with Jesus. At varying points in our life we are given bodies, resources, skills, and talents. These are not fairly or evenly distributed. Everyone is not a talented musician. Everyone is not great at math. But everyone is given a specific set of resources and skills along with our bodies that we are invited to steward for the good of others and the glory of God. We are invited to shoulder the burden of our lives in a way that reflects our creator. When we are living in our bodies and using our resources, skills, and talents in a way that feels most truly like ourselves, we are honoring God. When we take care of these things by investing in them, we are being good stewards. We are shouldering the burden of our lives.
When I rise in the mornings these days, it’s not to prepare for a day filled with discipleship meetings, events, and meeting new people in the community. It’s not to prepare to teach the words of God to anyone in particular. But, if I’m being really honest, I know what I was made for. I know the body, resources, skills, and talents that God has given me. I know that he has given me a body that is healthy and strong and can do a lot of good work. I know that I’m a really good Bible teacher and really good at developing communities and making people feel welcome. I’m really good at asking questions and teaching others how to follow Jesus. I’m good at organization, event planning, and leadership. I have time and energy to do these things. So, I rise in the morning, even though I’m not getting to use most of my skills and talents right now. I rise in the morning to shoulder the burden of healing. I rise in the morning to shoulder the burden of the words of God because it’s what I was made for, even if I don’t know exactly how it looks right now.
Because I relate to the prophet Jeremiah so profoundly, I hope that, even if I never do a day of ministry ever again, my words and my life and my legacy will live on to testify to those who will come after. The people that Jeremiah lived with on a daily basis didn’t really listen to him, but I have. So have many of you. And so have many others throughout the history of the church. He has been a blessing to us all, teaching us how to persistently shoulder the burden of our lives and the words of God.
It’s interesting that “urgency” is part of the nuance of hashkem. When I lost my job with Young Life, part of the shoddy reasoning that I was given was that I needed urgency to figure out what was next for me in my career and calling. I could write a book about why that reasoning is flawed and all the red flags that are tied up in it, but I’ll spare you for now. I think that there is an urgency that is forced and fueled by the sinful pursuit of bigger, faster, better in our culture or the immature ability to wait for God and work diligently where you’re at. It feels like stress and like you’re never enough. On the other hand, I believe that there is an urgency that is more of a compulsion. It’s an urgency that comes from understanding who God is and who you are and you just can’t help but get up every morning and live that out with gusto.
I’m thankful to be able to redefine and reclaim “urgency” in my walk with Christ. Perhaps I can reclaim a few more words that have been used to harm me. For now, I’ll leave you with the injunction to go before the Lord and ask him two things: 1. What specific burden is he inviting you to shoulder? 2. What would it look like to get up each day and persistently bear that burden with all the urgency of one who knows it’s the most important thing in the world?
Because it is. You know that right? What God made you for, how he made you, all that he’s given you, the world is weary, longing, and ready for you. There’s no one else like you. Never was and never will be. When any of us fail to shoulder the burden of our lives, we fail to bless the world with all that we were made to be. Our lives aren’t just about us. They’re for us all. May we shoulder the light burdens of our lives towards blessing this week. I’ll send you pics when I get the tattoo.